Qatar schools rank first globally for entrepreneurship

Qatar has emerged as the world's leading nation for entrepreneurship education at the school level, according to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor's 2025/2026 Global Report. This top ranking surpasses all other countries in a key metric that many nations struggle to achieve effectively. The assessment is based on the findings of the GEM's National Expert Survey, where panels of at least 36 experts from each of the 53 participating economies evaluate how well school systems cultivate an understanding of entrepreneurship as a viable career path and equip young individuals with the necessary skills to pursue it.

Qatar scored an impressive 5.9 out of 10, surpassing the critical 5.0 threshold that the GEM uses to determine whether a given condition genuinely supports entrepreneurship. What makes this result particularly noteworthy is the company it keeps: school-level entrepreneurial education is widely recognized as the weakest link in the entrepreneurial ecosystem across most of the world.

In fact, only 10 economies worldwide achieved the sufficiency bar, with Qatar being one of only four Gulf states alongside Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Bahrain to clear this threshold. This places the region in an elite group of global locations where school-level entrepreneurship education meets the required standards, alongside the Netherlands, Lithuania, and Finland.

The country's success extends beyond the school gates, as its performance in the area of entrepreneurial education post-school, encompassing universities and other higher-education institutions, also scored 5.9. This places Qatar in the eighth position among the 27 upper-income economies in this category. Globally, post-school scores generally lag behind school-level scores, as most educational systems tend to focus more heavily on developing entrepreneurial skills at the university level.

The remarkable performance at both school and post-school levels sets Qatar apart, indicating a consistent emphasis on embedding entrepreneurial skills throughout the entire education system rather than concentrating them at a single level. This educational framework has contributed significantly to Qatar's overall strong showing in the report, where the country ranked sixth out of 53 economies in terms of the National Entrepreneurial Context Index.

Moreover, Qatar secured a spot within the global top 10 for nine out of the 13 Framework Conditions evaluated. The report highlights Qatar's world-class school-level entrepreneurial education, coupled with strong marks for physical infrastructure and social and cultural norms, as crucial pillars supporting its entrepreneurial environment.

Researchers behind the study emphasize that the findings underscore the importance of integrating entrepreneurial thinking into the curriculum from an early age. They argue that exposing children to creativity, risk assessment, communication, and self-confidence from a young age helps cultivate a generation primed to build and lead.

Consequently, the report suggests that Qatar's classrooms are now better positioned to shape the entrepreneurs of tomorrow compared to any other country in the world.